As an Age Management Medicine physician and someone who is interested in quality of life, I really don't want to be remembered as a fat old man wandering around the house unable to care for myself.

This is one of the reasons I started down the path of better health in the first place. Quite frankly the thought of being infirm is much more frightening to me than the thought of death.

So I persevere in following my program of hormone replacement, nutritional supplementation, low glycemic diet, and exercise which I believe will provide me with the highest quality of life during my remaining years.

While I follow a low glycemic diet, I do not feel deprived and I am eating relatively less than I would otherwise. I believe many of the benefits derived from calorie restriction can be obtained by following a low glycemic diet.

Among these benefits seems to be a lower incidence of Alzheimer’s Disease and its symptoms.

A study in mice suggests a lower-calorie diet can help trigger the production of a protein that protects the brain from the disease, said researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.

In the study, the mice in one group were permitted to eat as they wished, while the other group of mice was fed only 70 percent of that amount.

When the animals were killed six months later, researchers discovered the brains of the calorie-restricted mice held significantly higher levels of an anti-aging protein, SIRT1, the researchers reported in the July issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

That protein has been shown to curtail and reverse the production of plaque in the brain, a typical symptom of Alzheimer's disease. Researchers have found the protein can also enhance the function of a patient's metabolism, kidneys and liver.

"The real message is that, in an animal model of Alzheimer's disease, caloric restriction led to the elevation of molecules that are associated with longevity and good health," said Dr. Giulio Pasinetti, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience who led the study.

"This may be the reason why caloric restriction may work to prevent Alzheimer's disease."

According to the National Institute of Aging, about 4.5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease, the most common cause of elderly dementia.

Its first symptom is often a mild forgetfulness that escalates into an inability to care for oneself and, eventually, death. There is no cure, and treatments merely delay the progression of the disease for a short time.

The Mount Sinai study bolsters other research that has found a relationship between what and how much people eat and risk for the disease in general.

"The same things that we know are good for your body -- particularly your vascular system -- are all part of maintaining healthy brain function," said Dr. Bill Thies, a staff pharmacologist at the Alzheimer's Association.

Pasinetti said his team had already replicated their experiment in monkeys and recorded similar results. They hope to begin a human version of the study by the end of the year.

Subjects would likely be near 70 years of age and submit to a more modest calorie reduction of perhaps 10 or 15 percent.